Unexpected results after ""REFRESHING" Firefox

This afternoon I started FF37 and it was NOT the same as it was when I shut it down last night - not even close. I had made no changes, hadn't added any new add-ons or changed any configurations. It's been acting a little weird for about 2 days, and MBAM and AVG couldn't find any problems so I decided to bite the bullet and do the refresh route and start from th beginning. Long story short - HUGE mistake on my part! Some of the add-ons that I had had forever and configured the way that I wanted them are either no longer available, or are only available in an 'updated' version that is not the same as before. I had been using a customizable set of of very small icons that are no longer the same at all, at least they do not act the same. And worst of all, now all of my browser tabs are transparent - absolutely invisible unless you are hovering over the tab, and I am quite used to being able to read them and then choose from their titles. As if that were not enough grief for one day, now when the browser is running, I no longer have a task bar beneath the window, and the only way I've been able to get it to reappear is by very carefully clicking between the icons on the tab menu. Simply bouncing the mouse across it as you can do in Windows to get it to reappear does not work here, and neither does changing any of the settings for the task bar in Windows.
I'm running Windows XP Pro, Friefox 37.02 and I am willing to try nearly anything to get this back somewhat close to what it was, and if that is not possible, then to make it at least usable for my needs.
Any help would be appreciated.

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to dance in the rain. "

I suppose I should have been more specific... there is no system restore point thanks to AVG. I don't know why but there has not been one since I have started using their program about a year ago, and for reasons beyond my control I was not able to reload my machine with a current backup. Yes, I know it is foolish and playing with fire and asking for these kinds of problems, but that is just the way that it is for now, so I am not able to solve this issue in the same manner as the other member did yesterday.

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to dance in the rain. "

I've just finished reading about 20 different pages from that link ( I got sidetracked) and first thing tomorrow I'll be trying what I read. Hopefully I'll get the same results that the other member did. Thanks for reminding me to read it through to the end, I nearly gave up when he started talking about reloading his image files!

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to dance in the rain. "

There is one more chance:
Users [user acct] appdata local mozilla
Users [user acct] appdata roaming mozilla
-- those two directories hold everything FF ever did for you
If desktop's Old Firefox Data exists --
you should be able carefully copy that back into the above two directories.